On taxis and food - Wednesday July 7, 2010

Wednesday July 7, 2010

Taking taxis

Today I took a taxi to the Predict office to work there. Fast wireless internet, fresh tea on demand, a lovely big desk with lots of natural light and a breeze. It’s addictive. First of all a taxi here isn’t the same as a taxi at home. It’s a 13 + driver + conductor minibus with a blue stripe on the side. There are hundreds of them on every road providing one of the main sources of public transportation. The best way to get a taxi for where I was going was to walk into Wandegeya and go to the taxi park. They will also pick you up along the road if you wave a hand, and there are set taxi stands, or stops, for drop offs. Theoretically, the taxi at the front of the line should leave first. However, the position in line is not all - how quickly a taxi fills (they don’t leave until full) depends on how vigorously they are touted to the passing crowd. When one enters the taxi park there are several men asking where you want to go and competing with each other to lead you to whichever taxi they work with. So vigorous touting fills taxis faster. It’s kind of funny watching the tout or the conductor taking people’s hands and trying to pull them towards the taxi of choice. I chose a dud tout, and although my taxi was first in line it wasn’t the first to leave, although I’m sure we waiting less than 10 minutes. In the mean time several people got off complaining about the ineffective loading procedure.

I had a very unusual occurrence - a Ugandan woman entered the taxi - realized that she had to sit next to me, waved her hand in a dismissive way, muttered something in an African language that included the word “muzungu” meaning white, and got off the taxi. I have never had another white person on a taxi with me, so I must have come as a surprise. The two men sitting behind me were absolutely flabbergasted, I could hear them laughing and slapping their legs and word muzungu featured several times in their conversation. But they gave me nice smiles so I don’t think it was at my expense. I just thought it was funny.

One gets some choice as to where to sit in a taxi. You have to fill in the full seats first (as compared to the jump seats that fold down in the “aisle” to get to the back of the taxi. The windows give you ventilation, but also exhaust fumes. If you sit in the row behind the driver you get a bit more space, a bit better view, but in the case of a crash you wouldn’t be well positioned. Of course the very back might not be great for that either. The worst spot is in the seat right next to the side door because it turns out the conductor shares it with you once he hops in and swings the door closed. Very squashed!

Ugandan English can be a bit challenging to follow at the best of times (its embarassing how often I’ve asked colleagues to repeat a sentence when it absolutely fails to register as english words), but I think my Canadian english is equally confusing. The conductors don’t always speak it well, so getting across where I want to get off the taxi can be a bit of a challenge. For example, it took three of us to convert my version of Acacia Avenue into understandable terms - a-kay-cee-a is not the same as a-kash-a.

On dining

Traditional Ugandan meals are not what one would call gourmet. They consist of a lot of starches, sometimes as alternatives, sometimes all together. Rice, Irish potatoes (boiled potatoes to us) cassava, posho (also known as sadza, a stiff concoction of boiled up ground mealie (corn) meal, matoke (twice steamed mashed plantain with a formidable consistency). Then a side of gravy with some chicken, fish or beef in it, and possibly another of add pinky grey, lumpy but good tasting peanut sauce. At least this in the meal in the vet school canteen (the same place I got food poisoning from the samoosa’s last visit) and in the small local cafe’s in Wandegeya. The more upmarket versions include vegetables on the side. I’ve had dinner with Betty several times which has also included beans (kind of baked beans-like), a thick cooked millet porridge, and some bits of meat more delectable to her than me. Also mealies - the white corn they grow here roasted and then eaten off the cob. Very chewy - a serious dental workout. Lunch in the vet canteen, which includes a substantial plateful of the above mentioned items, costs 1,500 to 2,500 Ush (currently 2,200 Ush to the US dollar).

The next level up in the Makarere School Guest house, where I had dinner with a colleague Wednesday night. They have a menu instead of a chalk board, tables with table cloths inside and out, and a range of items, although carbs (including french fries) still feature heavily. Dinner takes some time, a rather unpredictable time, to arrive, is very nice (good omelettes) with a splash of vegetables, and ranges from 9,000 to about 15,000 Ush. Monday I went out for lunch with Benard, the Predict country coordinator for Uganda, who I met on my first trip, and spagetti and mushroom sauce was 18,000 Ush, with meat dishes up to 25,000. The bottom end of the scale is very inexpensive, the top end pretty much on par with costs at home. And I haven’t even tried “upscale”.